—the cooler filled up quickly and she had to go to the bathtub, adding water, ice, and alcohol to keep everything moist and sanitary—
—next was the stomach, not the slightly sagging thing she'd been carrying around for the last ten years but a deliciously flattened tummy, its taut, aerobicized, Twenty—Minute-Workout muscles forming a dramatically titillating diamond that actually undulated when she moved, a bikini stomach if ever there was one, abs of steel; then came her jaw, elegant and chiseled, the jaw of a princess, Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday; her neck became slightly longer, thinner, sculpted, losing the threat of a double chin that had been hovering for the last couple of years, the muscles flowing down toward the sharp, perfect “V” in the center of her collarbone, something she'd always thought was unbearably sexy—
—the bathtub was quickly filling but that was all right, there couldn't be too much left at this point—
—then, after a while, her bone structure began to change: ribs not so thick, shoulders not so wide or bony, knees not so awkward and knobby—
—the rest of her body began altering itself with each new addition, her features and limbs molding themselves to each other like sculptor's clay, an organic symbiosis, her forced evolution, heading toward physical perfection until, at last, her skin itself blossomed unwrinkled and creamy, sealing around everything like a sheet of cellophane.
Amanda was sitting on her bed when she felt the last of it take place, then rose very slowly—the pain of each change had grown more and more intense, the last few minutes becoming almost unbearable—and looked at herself in the full-length mirror hanging on the inside of her closet door, not sure whether to smile or simply die. She had become both her own Galatea and Pygmalion. No other woman she'd ever met or seen could compare with what stared back at her from the mirror. She was completed, breathtaking, beautiful.
More than beautiful; she was Beauty.
And Beauty always has her way.
She told herself not to think about it, then went into the bathroom and pulled a bottle of prescription painkillers from the medicine chest, downing two of them before turning to face everything.
The remnants of Old Amanda.
There was arranging to be done.
By the time she finished there were four full Mason jars, as well as a full bathtub, sink, cooler, and toilet tank. The bones went into the laundry hamper along with several wet towels, and the skin, well-soaked, was draped over the shower curtain rod. She nodded, thinking to herself that it all looked very tidy, indeed.
She suspected that her mind would crumble soon—how could it not, after all this?—but hopefully the painkillers would kick in and she'd be nicely loopy before it got too bad.
She looked once more at her reflection in the mirror and thought, Why not enjoy it while you can?
Then it hit her: How in hell was she going to explain this at work on Monday?
Like my new clothes? I think they make me look like a new person, don't you?
She rubbed her temples, realizing that she had chosen to keep her own hair.
She liked that very much; liked it right down to the ground.
The pleasant, seductive numbness of the painkillers began to pour over her body, and she decided to go lie down for a little while.
She was just putting her head onto the pillow when she noticed that all six matryoshkas were displayed across the top of her dresser. She tried to remember when she'd taken them apart and arranged them this way.
She stared at them, noting after a few seconds that their shapes were now oddly uniform, all like gourds growing progressively smaller, right down to the baby who was no longer a baby but Amanda as she'd been at four years old; the next showed her as she'd been this morning; the next, as she'd been a few hours ago; the others, so silent and still, illustrated the rest of the stages of her transformation, the last and largest of them a sublime reflection of the woman who now lay across the room staring at it.
She felt so soft...
...In the room the women come and go...
...and it was so good to feel this soft, and sexy...
...Talking of Michelangelo...
...no guard now, no hardness, my sisters, I understand how you feel...
...a breath, a sigh, then—drained and exhausted—she felt herself falling asleep—
—in the room the women come and go—
—and was startled back to wakefulness by sounds in the upstairs hallway; slow, soft, almost imperceptible sounds; tiptoeing sounds.
She breathed slowly, watching her breasts rise and fall in the shadows, imagining some lover passionately kissing them, tonguing the nipples—
—the front door opened, then closed.
She sat up, holding her breath.
Looking around the room, she saw that her closet door was now closed; it had been open when she’d fallen asleep, and her bedroom door, closed before, was now standing wide open.
Jesus Christ, she hadn’t been out for very long, just a few seconds, wasn’t it? Just a moment or two but the time didn’t really matter a damn, ten minutes or ten seconds because someone had been in here while she was asleep! She jumped off the bed and ran into the hall, saw that the bathroom light was on, and kicked open the door. No one was inside— —but the sink was empty. Just like the bathtub. And the laundry hamper. And the toilet tank and the portable cooler and all of the mason jars. She stormed back into her bedroom and snapped on the overhead light, then flung open her closet door.
She stared at her wardrobe and knew instinctively that something was missing; she couldn’t say what, specifically, had been taken, but she knew that the whole didn’t match up quite right.
She sat down on the bed and stared at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door.
Damn if she wasn’t still a stunner.
Then she saw the matryoshka dolls behind her. No longer uniform in shape, they had returned to their original, disparate forms—a gourd, a pyramid, an oval, a pear, an egg, a seashell—but each of them now had one thing in common, one characteristic they hadn’t shared before:
None of them had a face.
Amanda took a deep breath, then checked the clock.
It was only twelve-thirty. The clubs didn’t close for another two hours and she wanted to be seen, to be admired, to feel pretty and wanted on this night.
It was nice to actually have the option for once.
She thought she knew what was happening, maybe. Maybe it would only be a matter of time, less than a few hours, and maybe she had all the time in the world and would be this gorgeous for the rest of her life, but either way she was going to make this evening count, goddammit!
She dressed quickly, purposefully choosing a pair of old jeans and a blouse that she knew she’d outgrown over a year ago.
Both fit wonderfully, hugging her form tightly, accentuating every wonderful curve. She threw an old vest on as well—which did wonders for emphasizing her bust—then unbuttoned not one, not two, but (for the first time in her life) three top buttons of her blouse, showing just enough of her freckles and cleavage and the slope of her breasts to make anyone want to see more. She checked her face in the bathroom mirror, under the harsh, unforgiving glow of the fluorescent light. No wrinkles, no bags, no blemishes; she needed no makeup. She looked...delicious. That made her smile, and brought a sparkle to her eyes. “What say we go out there and win one for the Gipper, eh?” She giggled, then Sparkle Eyes Amanda flowed out into the night.
6. The Water Doesn’t Know